Swedish designer Matti Klenell has designed two bird families for Iittala: the Harakka (Magpie) family and the Korpi (Deep Forest) family, both with two generations of members. Both families have five members – Mommy, Daddy, Brother, Little Sister, and Baby – each with their own distinctive character and their own story to tell.

Birds by Klenell collection is a celebration of glass technique and colour. The black-and-white Harakka family combines black, white, and clear glass, and depends on a range of moulds and traditional tools to make them possible. The Korpi family, in contrast, is very colourful, combining pink heads or beaks and dark blue bottom sections, or green, black, red, and white, with colour drawn on the surface in bands or blown into the body of the glass. In the process, he has given his glass birds a practical use alongside their aesthetic one – drawing on the varied skills of the glassblowers and craftsmen at Iittala’s Nuutajärvi glassworks.

Klenell’s birds comprise two or three parts, which adds to their sculptural qualities. They also include a functional feature that is unique in the Iittala Birds collection, as the hollow bottom sections of his birds can be used as handy little containers to keep treasures, such as jewellery, notes, and memories, just like the magpie.

Glass is a familiar material to Klenell and one in which he excels, as his exhibition of unique glass pieces in Stockholm in 2008 showed. Working with the craftsmen at Nuutajärvi gave Klenell the opportunity to continue his exploration of what glass can offer.

There are so many born-dead projects floating about we sometimes forget that - before anything else - design is an exact discipline in which function gives nothing away to style, and technical innovation is there to serve real user protocols and not just the sales pitch. With their 'Silver Art' range, Elium Studio has made this clear, demonstrating how French elegance can inform industrial design.

Five pieces compose the breakfast set - espresso machine, coffee percolator, toaster, electric jug and juice extractor - enacting subtle crossovers from kitchenware to tableware, and from function to décor. Purity of line and high finish given to materials (brushed stainless steel, wood chrome) in series products opens a new window on these archetypes of modern living: in the 'Grand Hotel' spirit, modest everyday accessories for preparing and serving access to the status of potential collector's pieces. The range reflects the way Elium Studio uses technology - efficiency must always be user friendly. This is the right stuff in the French vein, expressing clear balance between function and form.

Espresso Machine

Coffee Percolator

Toaster

Electric Jug

Juice Extractor

The Röhsska Museum prize committee for the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize, which is donated by the Torsten and Ragnar Söderberg foundations, has decided to award the Finnish designer Harri Koskinen with this year’s prize of SEK 1,000,000.

The prize committee's reasoning is as follows:
“Harri Koskinen is one of the foremost designers now occupied with the task of continuing the Nordic design tradition. His extensive, wide-ranging body of work has a unique, austere design that is consistently expressed with clear Nordic roots in its demands for good function and simplicity of form, as well as in the choice of materials. These elements combine to create lasting value. At the same time as he enjoys successful partnerships with design-intensive companies around the world, he is also participating in the renewal of his homeland’s design industry.”

'Olo' Sofa - Lundia (2006)	'Lantern' - Iittala (1999)
'Lamppu' Portable & rechargeable Light - Oluce (2003)	'Senior' Stool - SE-design (2007)
'Fatty' Container - Schmidingermodul (1998)	'Block' Lamp - Design House Stockholm (1996)

The prize will be ceremoniously awarded at the University of Gothenburg on the 4th of November and will be followed by an exhibition at the Röhsska Museum from the 5th of November 2009 until spring 2010.
 
The prize of SEK 1,000,000 is the largest design prize in the world.

Scandinavian design company Muuto is launching a wide range of interesting new products. From the Swedish designer Jens Fager comes a new side table and new colour options for the 'Raw' Collection. Furthermore Muuto presents a new design by Cecilie Manz while a popular product has found a new companion.

Last fall Muuto launched the popular 'Plus' grinders by Norway Says. 'Plus' are playful and beautiful grinders with a strong character that, according to the designers, add “a good-looking 'Plus' to your cooking”. With 'One', Norway Says has created a good-looking companion for 'Plus'. It is a simple but nice granite container if you prefer to add salt or pepper by hand or the cool wooden spoon that follows the 'One' container.

Jens Fager’s 'Raw' collection is expanded with a new side table and new colours. Like the other 'Raw' products, the 'Raw' side table is handmade on a band saw and painted in various colours. Jens Fager explains his concept: "'Raw' is a product family based on rough and intuitive interpretations of iconic everyday objects. Every piece is unique because they are all made of wood carved by hand with a band saw machine. With a strong and iconic look they can easily be placed anywhere in your home, office or restaurant.”

Danish designer, Cecilie Manz has created the 'Wicker' bread basket for Muuto. With the design of 'Wicker', Cecilie demonstrates how the combination of classic and modern Scandinavian design can shape an everyday product like a bread basket. Cecilie Manz on her design: “Wicker has clear references to typical Scandinavian basket techniques: wide and thin strips weaved in two directions. Only this time produced with a completely different method and material - a highly durable composite moulded into its shape. This gives a structure that is light and hollow, emphasizing the direction of the individual strips.” 'Wicker' is shaped in ceramic and plastic composite.

There are many design related exhibitions in Brussels for the moment. The one organised by Galerie Diito has drawn our attention.
On the three levels of the beautiful space of the rue de l'Aurore, Diito was showing a selection of works by a confirmed designer (David Trubridge), emerging designers (Charlotte Lancelot and Dustdeluxe) and by a group of 9 very young women designers who have just graduated (V.I.D).

Here is a small glimpse of the exhibition.

The 3 works above are by David Trubridge

The 2 above are by Charlotte Lancelot

The 3 pictures above are by V.I.D.

Lincoln Kayiwa, a designer who graduated from the University of Art and Design Helsinki in 2007, has started his own product design company Kayiwa.

 Here are 2 of his new products:

'Dino' clothes racks has a strange look with its hangers in the shape of a dinosaur skeleton.

'Tukaani' is an eating device for Asian food consumers in the West. The taut movement allows steady grip in the hand and the curl at the end of the tool provides easy food picking.